Plain Magic - Revisited
by lirial89
Summary: A rewrite of my story Plain Magic Several months the final battle Harry is sick to death of magical Britain, they haven't changed and the way things are going in ten years or less there will be another Dark Lord and why should he die for them again, why should he fight for the sheep who are too stupid to fight for themselves? St Louis here he comes, watch out.


**Plain Magic – Revisited**

Fandom: - Harry Potter/Anita Blake

Pairings: - Harry/

Set: - After the end of the Harry Potter series excluding that travesty of an epilogue. And before Bloody Bones.

Warnings: - Violence, discrimination, bigotry, child abuse, sex, evti*entual death of a major character, will be slash.

Kinks: - Slight DS themes, rough sex,

Disclaimer: - both Harry Potter and Anita Blake are owned by J K Rowling and Laurel K Hamilton respectively, I'm just playing with the characters. This is a blanket disclaimer for the whole story.

Summery: - Several months the final battle Harry is sick to death of magical Britain, they haven't changed and the way things are going in ten years or less there will be another Dark Lord and why should he die for them again, why should he fight for the sheep who are too stupid to fight for themselves? St Louis here he comes, watch out.

Chapter One – The Sound Of Silence

OoOoO

"I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's more evidence of any thinking going on inside it." Terry Pratchett

OoOoO

Harry made his way to the edge of the crowd as the new Minister of Magic made his acceptance speech to the crowd in the Ministry's Atrium. The newly elected Minister was Marius Erntwhistle, a former member of the Department of International Cooperation who had kept his head down during Voldemort's reign, had drawn no attention, had not fought in any battle or skirmish and had sure as hell never helped or aided a muggleborn or half-blood in his life let alone when they were being hunted by Death Eaters and Snatchers.

Harry hated him.

Him and all his stupid, useless, spineless, racist ilk.

The battle-hardened teen's face grew more and more impassive with each sentence the moron uttered. Currently brown eyes scanned the rest of the crowd for their impressions of their newest puppet leader and found only impressed and approving looks, Harry sneered internally at their stupidity, the fucking sheep of Wizarding Britain. As they started applauding the dipshit he made his way out of the Ministry and back to Diagon Alley briefly. It was the final straw and he was so fucking done with all the moronic _adults_ and their ideas and expectations of him and what he should do with his life.

Namely join the Auror Corps or return to Hogwarts for his final year and _then_ join the Auror Corps to show that the Ministry was to be trusted, that everything was safe and would go back to normal and Harry just wanted to start cursing people and never stop until they all just quit bugging him.

Once upon a time Harry had thought he had wanted to become an Auror, to help protect his fellow wizards and witches, to help keep people safe. And then he'd spent his fifth year being demonised by the press and the Ministry after one of theirs had tried to kill him, and then his sixth year where every other article in the paper was 'Harry Potter will save us!' and 'Why hasn't he killed You-Know-Who yet?!' while _no-one listened to him when he said Malfoy was acting suspiciously_ , and then there was his year and a half on the run while Death Eaters, Snatchers and _Aurors_ actively hunted him with the intent to bring him to Voldemort to be tortured to death. And the nine months after Hermione and Ron had deserted him had seen Harry _slaughter_ everyone who had gotten close to catching him as they hunted him, not that Harry had ever spoken of how many he had killed, or ever would. It was a secret that he was going to take to his grave.

He glanced briefly at the gleaming white building that was Gringotts and was glad that he'd moved all his money out of the control of the traitorous Goblins who ran the bank the summer before his fifth year. That had been the summer that he'd fully realised that one day he'd have to run and if he wasn't careful he was either going to be trapped or he'd end up losing his money when he tried to escape.

Harry shifted his satchel strap on his shoulder and brushed his currently mousy brown hair out of his eyes before he headed to the Post Office near the Owl Emporium. Seeing the multitudes of owls flying about the building and perched on the roof line hurt, he desperately missed Hedwig, his most loyal and faithful friend. He entered the business with the soft black leather of his satchel shifting gently on his hip and light brown eyes sweeping his surroundings for danger with practised watchfulness.

A man only a few years older than Harry looked up from behind the counter with a professional smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Welcome to the Post Office, owl can I help you today?" Harry's lips quirked just slightly at the bad pun and nodded in greeting, eyes slightly off to side of the other man's, he was taking no chances, no one was ever going to read his mind again and if someone tried… well, traditional Occlumancy Harry might suck at but he'd somehow learned to wrap the feeling of Voldemort's Crucio around his mind in a makeshift shield. It was highly effective if crude.

"Hello, I was talking with a friend and he suggested I get a post-box for security, I'd like to know the options if you wouldn't mind," Harry requested politely but firmly.

The man nodded in easy agreement and pulled a detailed list of options from below the counter. "Of course, we have the basic options which will deliver your letters and allow you to receive them, the next level which do basic packages as well," He said pointing to the items on the list, he turned and grabbed a box off one of the shelves, it was a bit bigger than a shoe box but not as deep, made of a deep rich reddish wood and placed it on the counter. "This is the deluxe model, the way these boxes work is that you have a box that corresponds with one here, letters get sent to you but come here where we place them in your box. The letters that are placed in your box here get transported through to the box in your possession, the deluxe model strips all charms, hexes and curses from the letters placed in the box and gives you a summery of what was sent written on the envelope that the spelled object is in." he pointed at a silver crescent moon medallion embedded in the lid of the wooden box. "This glows when a letter comes through and will continue to glow until you take the letters out. To send a letter back you place it in your box, and it gets transferred to us and we send it with one of our owls. For the deluxe model you pay a yearly fee of 100 galleons," Harry blinked shocked at the price, you could by a decent broom with that amount but for what you were getting it seemed to be a good deal.

"So if I had one of these, would it work in a different country? I plan to go travelling for the next couple of months before Hogwarts goes back," Harry lied easily with a tilt of his head.

The store clerk nodded brightening at that. "Yeah, but only the deluxe models, the others don't have enough spells on them to work out of the country," Harry nodded thoughtfully then thought of something else.

"What about packages? How do they get sent through?"

"Oh! That's easy, there's an automatic shrinking charm – once the package is lowered into the box, it's shrunk into a size that fits into the box and when you take it out it regains its original size." He said cheerfully and pointed at the lid. "Oh, and when you send something back through your box to here you need to shut the lid for it to go through. Do you have any other questions?"

Harry double checked about tracking charms and what would happen to charmed items when they went through the box before picking a box made of a deep polished brown oak with a silver crescent moon medallion. Harry had to tell the older man who he was to get the box tied to his name but everything happened quite quickly after that and with minimal gushing and the fee's paid for the next ten years. There was no way in heaven or earth that Harry would get caught by the Ministry or some 'reformed' Death Eaters coming back to renew his mailbox contract and at the end of the contract hopefully he'd have found a way to stop people tracking him via the name 'Harry Potter'.

Harry left the Post Office with his new mailbox slipped into his bag and quickly made his way out of the heaviest foot traffic and wandered down the alley looking around with jaded eyes, he wished faintly that he was more comfortable with magical Britain but he wasn't, he didn't like the rampant prejudice or the sheer stupidity of the majority of the wizards that he had met. He'd never been taught how to navigate it, how to buy food, do laundry, pay taxes… Harry just felt so completely disconnected from the communities around him that he honestly didn't want to even try to belong.

After the age of six he'd never wanted to try to belong with the Dursleys and if he was being honest with himself, it was the Tri-Wizard Tournament that had broken all but the last tiny threads that had him holding on to the hope of belonging. It was Sirius's death, his murder by Bellatrix, assisted by Snape's malicious disregard and Dumbledore's game playing that broke the last hair fine thread of _belonging_ in Harry. There was nothing to tie Harry to Britain anymore, nothing to hold him where to a country where no one looked at him and saw a person rather than a symbol or weapon to wield or destroy. Not even Ron, Hermione or Ginny looked at him and saw the broken and scared boy that had clawed his way out of war, being betrayed and abandoned by his 'friends' and being hunted by murderers and torturers.

No.

No, Harry was done trying to get the people of this god-forsaken country to see him as a person, for just _one_ of them to look at him and see _Harry_.

He shook his head and smiled bitterly as he murmured one of his favourite quotes from Albert Einstein. "Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." He snorted quietly; any wizard raised in this country at least wouldn't have a clue about who that was.

With a sigh Harry made his way out of the alley and back through the Leaky Cauldron, he wandered down the street until he got to a taxicab to the other side of London. A phone booth at the closest shopping centre drew his attention, as Harry made his way over to it, he pulled out the business card he'd been given from his wallet and dialled the number on it after feeding some change to the phone, it rang twice before someone picked up.

"Hello, this is the American Embassy, how can I help you today?" A pleasently polite female voice came through the line and Harry straightened and braced himself for what he was about to do.

"Hi, I'm Harry Potter, I'm calling to speak to Mr Field," He said, heart pounding in his chest as he tried to keep his breathing calm.

"Is he expecting your call?" She asked him with a reserved tone.

"Not today specifically but he was expecting one from me within the next two weeks," Harry explained trying to keep his nerves out of his voice. She hummed for a moment before she placed him on hold for a minute; Harry stuffed a few more coins into the phone box while waiting. Her voice came back on the line this time with much more respect in her voice.

"I'll put you through right now Mr Potter, have a nice day," She said and Harry thanked her for her help. It was merely seconds before a cheerful male voice came through the line.

"Harry! I wasn't expecting your call for at least a week, is everything ok?" There was genuine concern in his voice; it made Harry smile through his nerves.

"Everything's fine, I've just made up my mind and well – I didn't see a point in waiting,"

"Oh? And what's your decision?" Harry took a steadying breath and breathed out before he answered.

"Yes," He said voice shaking slightly. "My answer is yes." Harry felt tension draining out of him with those words and he slumped against one of the plastic walls of the booth. __'Burning bridges one by one,'__ a voice sang in his mind and the first honest smile in months crossed his face, it was small and weak but for all that it was there and for the first time in years Harry felt hopeful of the future.

There was a stunned silence for a moment then the older man laughed appreciably and Harry could hear the chair creak as if he was shifting in his seat. "Well then Harry, when you like to leave?"

End chapter one

AN – Hey guys, so this a rewrite of Plain Magic. I got all these awesome reviews from people on this story and my other ones and I felt amazing each time I read one or received a review mostly saying that they liked my story and when was the next chapter. And as you know, I kept promising that the next chapter was coming – I did write more scenes but nothing that could have been a proper chapter and then I re-read Plain Magic and I was like - _'_ _O_ _h,_ _helpful!Goblins how original… oh, the conversations are forced and weird… oh, Harry's hang-ups are totally there to piss off Anita and mildly irritate the others… oh, America is somehow the perfect haven for Harry and there is no adjustment period – granted this only came about because I watched Trump get elected and went '_ WTF were they _thinking_ , I don't even live in America and I know this is going to suck for them (and the rest of the world)' _and after watching Fantastic Beasts and going '_ Ooh, shiny new Harry Potter canon and how can I use this in my stories?!' _And I just… I like the idea of the story I wrote but I don't like rereading it and I should be able to do that without cringing._

Anyway, expect the next chapter within the week or so depending on Life, The Universe and Everything.


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